“He is worse; the rudest person I ever met,—so familiar.”
“Why will he always insist on shaking hands?”
“Why will he not at least wash his own, occasionally?”
“And then his jests from the Queen's Bench,—the last mot—I'm sure I often wished it were so literally—of some stupid Chief Justice. Well, really, in comparison, your savage friend is a mirror of good looks and good manners.”
“Good night, my dear,” said Olivia, rising, as though to decline a renewal of the combat.
“Good night,” echoed her sister, bluntly, “and pleasant dreams of 'Roland the brave, Roland the true;' the latter quality being the one more in request at this moment.” And so, humming the well-known air, she took her candle and retired.
CHAPTER VIII. LOVE v. LAW
Ay! marry—they have wiles,
Compared to which, our schemes are honesty.
The Lawyer's Daughter.
Notwithstanding all that we hear said against castle-building, how few among the unbought pleasures of life are so amusing, nor are we certain that these shadowy speculations—these “white lies” that we tell to our own conscience—are not so many incentives to noble deeds and generous actions. These “imaginary conversations” lift us out of the jog-trot path of daily intercourse, and call up hopes and aspirations that lie buried under the heavy load of wearisome commonplaces of which life is made up, and thus permit a man, immersed as he may be in the fatigues of a profession, or a counting-house, harassed by law, or worried by the Three per Cents, to be a hero to his own heart at least for a few minutes once a week.